Harry's Ruminations

I hear this today as a planted sales question: "Why shouldn't I just use an Open Source solution instead of [my company's dooflotchy]?" So help me, this is what I recall as being what the speaker wanted the salesperson to respond. Well, first of all, you get what you pay for.  Would you really want to trust your sensitive data to a piece of Open Source?  We will support and stand behind our solution, and you have every opportunity to influence the product roadmap if you go with us. Yeah, I didn't really make it past the first two sentences either.  Of the last two, I have no complaints.  Of the first two I listened in disbelief.  What is this?  A 1997 Microsoft pamphlet? Let me be as clear as possible:   If you lead with that, you will lose.  Selling anyone on fear unless the fear is real is a losing proposition. Also, categorically, you're wrong.   You get much MORE than you pay for with alost any software you  buy, or (thes...

I remember distinctly being in Don Napier's 6th grade Language Arts class in Sebastian Middle School in Jackson, KY and getting one of those writing assignments everyone hates.   Write an essay arguing a position. It was the early days of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in Kentucky.  The Supreme Court of Kentucky (SCOK) had decided that the education system in Kentucky was unconstitutional, that our perennial position just above Mississippi on every aptitude test was not good enough, so out with the old, in with the new. Write More! Went the mandate.  We'll no longer grade you on objective things (neatness, grammar, spelling, content) but on subjective things called a "writing portfolio."  Thus, prompt like the genius nugget above. Let me put it further in context:  I was writing this paper out of sheer boredom.  A blizzard raged outside, an honest-to-God, Minnesota worthy 4-5 feet of snow with drifts.  It was so bad my Dad stayed in our tiny...

The other day, I found myself wallowing a tad, and I cried out to God, simply: "God, please help me." At the time, I was writing in my journal, some pretty negative, emotionally-charged stuff, like: I feel like a failure as a husband. I feel like a failure as a father. My career isn't working out the way I really would like.  I'm certainly duller than I was in 2010, and I feel overwhelmed all the time. I'm not coding regularly anymore. Writing the above, I literally stopped in mid sentence and immediately wrote these words: So, fuck it.  What am I going to DO?  Blah, bah, blah.  I've been here, what, a dozen times before?  What the fuck to do? Here's (part of) what I plan to do. I think it's time to step out of small group leadership. I strongly think going off  Facebook+  again would be healthy.  I'm tired of seeing all the happy people of the world when I'm sad, and at the same time, I'm wasting inordinate amounts of tim...

Few things in this world make me fighting mad.  But then, there's this. http://www.kentucky.com/2012/12/07/2435663/rare-state-takeover-of-school.html This is my hometown.  This where my formative years were spent.   And, because of idiotic graft, nepotism, and malfeasance, this is where my blood relations remain trapped in a cycle of hopelessness compounded by cronyism, intent on keeping power (what pathetic excuse for power it is!) for themselves. Were I Dante, there'd be some Terza Rima regarding Arch Turner and his ilk's future in Hell, but words fail me. WHY ARE THERE NOT RIOTS IN THE STREETS OF JACKSON?! What sort of combination of (Apocryphal, yet apt) "Boiled Frog" syndrome and Stockholm Syndrome exists on the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River that tolerates this?   Yes, I understand a large percentage of people find primary or secondary employment from the school system or the (almost as nepotistic!) District 11 of the Ky DOT.  Everything is political,...

I'm afraid quite a bit.  It's getting on my nerves. I understand I shouldn't  be afraid, both from a Biblical and a rational perspective.  I have been redeemed, and life's never been better.  Nevertheless, that's not really helping me at the moment. I'm going to try and apply something I learned about grief:  You have to grieve.  You can't avoid or deny it, or you will grieve at the most inconvenient time possible.  Likewise, fear seems something you must face and give name to, then you can move past it.  So, here goes. I'm afraid of being alone.  Years of no peers and only cattle to talk to will do that. I'm not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of outliving my wife. I'm afraid of my own carnal nature--my selfishness, laziness, apathy. I'm afraid my ADD will ruin my life, despite my best efforts. I'm afraid of my temper, and what I'm capable of when I'm mad. I'm afraid being abandoned by those I love--wife, kids, f...

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things :  Businesses do things for irrational and political reasons all the time (see below), but in the main they converge on doing things which increase revenue or reduce costs.  Status in well-run businesses generally is awarded to people who successfully take credit for doing one of these things.  (That can, but does not necessarily, entail actually doing them.)  The person who has decided to bring on one more engineer is not doing it because they love having a geek around the room, they are doing it because adding the geek allows them to complete a project (or projects) which will add revenue or decrease costs.  Producing beautiful software is not a goal.  Solving complex technical problems is not a goal.  Writing bug-free code is not a goal.  Using sexy programming languages is not a goal.  Add revenue. ...

"For seven years...." "For SEVEN years...." "FOR SEVEN years, Harold...." Just as a child knows when his full given name comes from his flustered parent's mouth, a husband knows when his wife starts naming the time they've been married, he's in trouble. Well, honey, for SEVEN YEARS tomorrow... ...you've stood by me. ...you've watched me break, and grow, and break again. ...you've watched me struggle, and doubt, and blame, and generally resist any form of responsibility or accountability. ...you've watched addictions and off-kilter brain chemistry steal me away from you. And for SEVEN YEARS, you've remained.  And you've loved me, even when that 'love' is telling me no and getting me help and screaming right back at me louder until I'll listen.   You've born me two beautiful girls, both in the most difficult way possible, sacrificing your body's long-term well-bein...